Sunday, January 6, 2013

Only 58 gray wolves survive in the wild in Arizona and New Mexico. We can't afford to let a single one be killed. Wolf numbers are so low that at this point we're fighting to save theentire Mexican gray wolf subspecies from going extinct.With five active lawsuits to stop wolf killing in Oregon, Wyoming, the Southwest and Minnesota, the Center is the only group in the country fighting to save all four gray wolf populations in the contiguous United States. We'll soon be filing suit to save Alaska's beautiful Alexander Archipelago wolf as well.

But nowhere is the crisis so severe as in the Southwest. Due to shooting, trapping and political opposition by the livestock industry, the recovery program has completely stalled out. Only 58 wolves exist in the wild, yet the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is not only doing nothing to boost the population -- it is trapping some of the last survivors.

Last month we filed suit to force the government to implement wolf protections recommended by its own scientific panel more than 10 years ago. This morning we filed suit to make the government manage the Southwest's wolves as a unique subspecies, requiring that a new recovery strategy be developed.

It was the Center's legal work that got Mexican wolves released into the wild back in 1998. These wolves again need our help to keep their rightful place on the landscape.